Hello everyone! This is my 1st post so I just wanna say hi to all you oneironaughts!

I've been into lucid dreaming since 1998 and have got loads to share with you. There was a time, around the early 2000's when I was having lots of lucid dreams, but they gradually dried up which is quite depressing! Life has been absolute hell for several years with no end of severe physical and mental pain. This has taken a massive toll on lucid dreaming. Although things are SO bad right now I wanna try and use lucid dreaming as a form of a pain killer. I know how good it is cos I've had many mind blowing experiences!

I'm very obsessive, which has been my downfall, BUT for years I was on a mad mission trying to find the perfect formula for inducing lucid dreams. I tell you, I've tried almost EVERYTHING imagineable from flashing lights to recordings of "This is a dream!" playing all night long!

It took about 3 months before I had my first lucid experience, and I averaged about one a fortnight for about a year. Dreams are so weird and confusing and I'm sure we all have lucid dreams mixed together with non lucid ones more frequent that we realise, but for me, a proper lucid dream is one where you feel SO awake you can hear external sounds etc. I usually think things like... "This is great, I hope my mum or her boyfriend doesn't get up or start coughing etc." Or "Phew! Thank god for that, I can go to work feeling happy now!" It really is like walking a tightrope cos it's SO easy to wake up. Before I go any further, I'm kinda writing this to let people that haven't had any lucidity yet know what it feels like. For weeks/months I questioned whether a 30 second lucid dream was worth all the effort? The thing that kept me SO motivated was the thought of what I might be able to achieve several years later. Well, for a short time things really did get better around the early 2000's. I hit on something major!

The frequency of having ld's stayed pretty much the same BUT I had the ability to go back into lucidity land when it faded away. And I was able to do this many times in a row often deciding that I'd had enough for one night so wanted to wake up. Sometimes it came back on when I went back to sleep cos my mind was so used to being in that state.

I remember one magical Friday night when I had that many back to back lucid dreams I was actually starting to feel quite cocky like I was a master of the dreamworld! I was a bit concerned that I was gonna be really groggy at work so just wanted to get some normal sleep. But, the lucid dreams just kept on coming, there was no stopping them. It was like it'd become the norm to be lucid. The next day I was buzzing like crazy with excitement, BUT I was also a bit concerned that I'd seen the dark side, worrying that I'd never be able to sleep properly again. God, it didn't take long for that worry to fade, I couldn't get lucid for weeks afterwards no matter how hard I tried!

This is an absolute mystery but the frequency of my lucidity got less and less, and I was having to rely on herbs etc. Galantamine worked quite well, but I don't recommend it cos I think it may have a few side effects.

I've gone through lots of stages where I've tried really hard to get lucid, and apart from the occasional one that was more of the ordinary dream-like kind I have pretty much had zilch success.

I'm hoping that getting involved in this forum this increase my chances of success. I wanna have that cocky feeling back again!!!